A SERIES OF PAMPHLETS DESCRIBING 
THE VARIOUS MISSION Aus OF THE 


NUMBER 2 BENGAL-ORISSA 


THE BENGAL-ORISSA MISSION 
mca. 


1. The Country 


HE Bengal-Orissa Mission lies in two Tada 
- provinces and comprises two districts, Midnapore 
in the Province of Bengal, and Balasore in the 
Province of Bihar and Orissa. This mission, 

formerly the Free Baptist Mission, is now under the 
Weeuan of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society 


through the merging in 1911 of the missionary work of Free | 


Baptists and Baptists. The Midnapore district begins at the 
Hooghly River near Calcutta and extends one hundred and 
fifty miles along the Bay of Bengal, to the south-west. A 
small part lying along the Hooghly River, comprising Tamluk, 
has been ceded to the Methodists as their field. The Balasore 
district is south of the Midnapore and extends one hundred 


miles further south. A large part of the district west of 


Balasore, known as the Morbhanj, also properly belongs to 
this division, as our missionaries tour through it, and no other 
mission is working the territory, except at one remote part. 
The whole area is more than seven thousand square miles, 
with a population exceeding four millions. Midnapore and 
Balasore are the largest cities in their districts, having 34,000 


MISSIONARY SURVEYS | 


and 22,000 inhabitants respectively. There are on the 


average of three small villages to every two square miles, with © 


more than 500 inhabitants to a square mile. Rice is the 
main crop. Others of less importance are peas, beans, sweet 


potatoes, bananas, mangoes, cotton, sugar cane, tobaccoand 


oil seeds. The northern boundary of the field is less than C 
twenty-three degrees north of the equator. 


2. The People 


Most of the population are Hindus, with a large admixture — 
of Mohammedans, especially in the Midnapore district. In 
the northwest, chiefly among the hills, is an aboriginal tribe, 
the Santals, numbering 150,000. Four languages are spoken: © 
Bengali in the Midnapore district; Oriya in the Balasore 
district, and the Morbhanj: Hindi largely by the Moham- 
medans and Santali by the Santals. The mission work is 


conducted almost exclusively through Bengali in the north — nh 


and Oriya in the south. Even the Santals are reached through 


the Bengali, as the government requires that all school in- 


struction be given in Bengali. Caste restrictions are rigorously | 
observed. Women are largely secluded. Girls are betrothed 
and married and sometimes become widows before entering 
their teens. This practice of child marriage, however, is slowly 
_ being abolished wherever Christian teaching has taken hold. 


3. Mission Work 


The mission was opened in 1836. Rev. Amos Sutton, a 
missionary of the English Baptists at Puri, near Cuttack, 
200 miles southwest of Calcutta, had married the widow of 
James Coleman, one of Adoniram Judson’s early associates 
in Burma. Mr. and Mrs. Sutton desired helpers. Mrs. 


Sutton, an American Baptist, supposed her own people had fe ee 


all they could care for in maintaining the mission in Burma, _ 
but suggested to her husband that possibly the Free Baptists — 

might be enlisted in missionary enterprise. He wrote a letter 
addressed to Free Baptists, designed for publication in the 
Morning Star, but not knowing the address of this newspaper, 
he pigeonholed the letter and it lay forgotten several months, 


until a package came from England wrapped in an old copy 
of the Morning Star with the desired address. The letter was 
quickly despatched across the sea. 

_ That letter was printed in the Morning Star April 13, 1832. 

As a result, in the following January the Free Will Baptist 
Foreign Mission Society was organized: in 1834 Mr. and | 
Mrs. Sutton left India on furlough, and came to America. 
For a year Mr. Sutton served as the corresponding secretary 
of the new society, and a fund of nearly $3,000 was raised. 
Mr. Sutton addressed his brethren of the Baptist churches, 
and won their support also for the work in India, so that 
when he and his wife sailed from Boston in September, 1835, 
there sailed with them Rev. and Mrs. Jeremiah Phillips and 
Rev. and Mrs. Eli Noyes, representing Free Baptists, and 
Rev. and Mrs. Samuel Stearns Day, representing Baptists, 
the latter to begin that famous and successful work among 
the Telugus of South India. 

In the beginning, therefore, Baptist and Free Baptist mis- 
sionary work in India was indissolubly linked through an 
English Baptist and his American wife and a chain of cir- 
cumstances which must be recognized as providential. 


4. The Stations 

MIDNAPORE is seventy miles west of Calcutta, and in 
addition to regular evangelistic and zenana work, a boys’ 
school, a girls’ school and a Bible school for the training of 
native preachers, are maintained. 

BHIMPORE, twenty miles northwest of Midnapore, is a 
station for Santals. Besides schools for boys and girls and 
much outstation work, there is the Sterling Memorial Hospital. 


KHARAGPUR is an important railroad town rapidly growing. 


An English church for Eurasians is prosperous, and the work nie 


for natives, who come in large numbers from various parts of 
India, is particularly promising, because the people so largely 
_ break loose from the fetters of caste in their new surroundings. 
ConTaAI is situated in a densely populated region. It is 
a strategic center for evangelistic work and has some 
primary schools and a dispensary. 


JELLASORE, with a woman missionary in residence, is now 


the center of several village schools and some outstation work. 


SANTIPORE has schools for boys and girls, an Lacuna ‘ 
school where weaving, carpentry and iron work are taught; a _ 


dispensary, a native village founded on socialistic principles: ies 


and extensive evangelistic features. 


-Bavasore is the seat of a large high school for boys, an fa 


industrial school giving instruction in gardening, carpentry, 


iron work and book-binding, a large kindergarten, primary ; i 
grade schools for both boys and girls, orphanagesforboth 
boys and girls, a widows’ home, one book-room and Stone be i 


evangelistic work. 


BHADRAK has no resident missionary at present; its work i is : Ne 
confined chiefly to a primary school and the itinerating efforts 


of native Bible women and preachers and is under the ie i 
vision of missionaries in Balasore. . 

CHANDBALI, also without a missionary, has a station 
school and evangelistic work under native supervision. It 
is part of the Balasore field. 


The churches have a membership ét i 500s ners are ck 
many trustworthy native workers; churches and schools are 


maintained in several outstations and important centers — 
should soon be occupied by missionary families. High school 


boys come to the missionaries freely to talk about Jesus and in ae 
some stations the missionaries open their homes to the boys 


for prayer and song service on Sunday evenings. Attendance 
is voluntary, but large, as the boys greatly appreciate thes 
privilege. Most mission school students show great earnest- vi 
ness and consideration of Christian decisions. 


Benégal-Orissa Literature 


Bengal-Orissa: Missionary Surveys. . . .. . . Price $ .or | 


History of Our Indian Mission Field ........ . Free 
‘Missions in: 'Bengal-Orissas ayo dine 2 Cree eas Uae TO Gen aN 
The Gitide Book sii a sane er uDn otc PRG Aas 


Catalog giving list of general literature on Bengal-Orissa free. Annual — 
Report of Society free on receipt of ro cents to cover postage. Ma 


119-2M-5-1-1918. 


